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In the face of today’s crises, a new generation of engineer-entrepreneurs is choosing to act rather than comment, combining technological excellence with a deep understanding of human realities. Progress only makes sense when it creates tangible, measurable, and lasting value, rooted in efficiency, on-the-ground engagement, and a clear ethical compass. Far from pitting profitability against impact, these paths show that innovation, responsibility, and performance can go hand in hand.
At a time when declinist narratives are gaining ground, a new generation of graduates is making a counterintuitive choice: turning away from fatalism to restore meaning to action. Their ambition is not to comment on crises, but to confront them. Health, biodiversity, energy, security: these systemic challenges call for responses that combine technological excellence with a deep understanding of use cases, organizations, and human behavior.
At the intersection of engineering sciences and social sciences, these entrepreneurs are tackling concrete problems, often long neglected. The career of Dr. François Pelen offers a telling illustration. By founding the Point Vision Group, he did more than optimize a business model: he transformed access to ophthalmological care in France, providing a pragmatic response to “medical deserts,” where many were content merely to lament the lengthening wait times for consultations.
The philosopher Georges Canguilhem defined medicine as “a technique or an art at the crossroads of several sciences.” This definition applies just as fully to entrepreneurship, an inherently hybrid discipline, called upon to combine technical rationality, a clinical grasp of reality, and responsibility.
Progress and value creation go hand in hand
Whatever one’s definition of progress, it only takes on meaning through its effects on individuals and society. A technological innovation cannot be considered progress unless it translates into tangible benefits. Value creation requires a methodical approach, grounded in factual data rather than belief, and articulated around both strategic vision and operational excellence.
For the engineer-entrepreneur, value creation rests on an imperative of efficiency: achieving ambitious goals with limited resources. In a world of finite resources, where sustained annual growth of 2% would lead to ecological deadlock in less than a century, the engineer becomes a central actor in the transition. Their mission is to build a coherent “tetralogy of value”: a clear value proposition, a robust value architecture, a viable financial equation, and, finally, shared values. Without this last pillar, no lasting mobilization is possible. Success does not emerge from solitary intuition, but from constant back-and-forth with the field, ensuring that the solution addresses a real need rather than a technological fantasy.
Without an ethical compass, progress goes nowhere
This “ethical compass” forms the foundation for mobilizing teams and partners around a project that transcends financial performance alone. Today, it finds a natural extension in impact investing. Unlike traditional venture capital, focused on maximizing returns, impact investing seeks a more demanding balance: generating measurable social or environmental benefit while ensuring credible financial returns.
Paths such as those of Moderna or the Point Vision Group demonstrate that profitability and impact are not mutually exclusive. This approach, however, requires a long-term vision. Liquidity is more complex: an impact-driven company cannot simply be sold to the highest bidder without ensuring cultural alignment with the acquirer. Here, the entrepreneur’s humanism plays a protective role, safeguarding the mission’s continuity beyond financial cycles.
Engineer-entrepreneurs as contemporary archetypes
Every society is structured around rituals, myths, and figures of identification. Sociologist Robert K. Merton highlighted the importance of role models in individual trajectories. Today, these models are no longer confined to sports or media celebrities; they are embodied by scientists and entrepreneurs capable of inspiring through their ability to transform the world.
It is precisely this figure of the inventor-entrepreneur that the Marius Lavet Association seeks to promote. By honoring engineers who have successfully transformed scientific discovery into industrial and commercial success, it reminds us that progress is, above all, a human adventure. These laureates demonstrate that it is possible to navigate with equal rigor from the laboratory bench to corporate strategy, from quantum physics to finance. Heirs to the scientists and philosophers of the Enlightenment, they place scientific rigor at the service of public debate and the great transitions of our time.
Engineers, architects of collective progress
Combining technological performance with energy sobriety; putting digital technologies at the service of health; reducing the power consumption of electronic chips; developing augmented intelligence technologies to assist individuals; securing and optimizing communications through quantum photonics: these are the challenges taken up by André-Jacques Auberton, Éric Carreel, Julie Grollier, Luc Julia, and Pascale Senellart, finalists for the 2026 Marius Lavet Trophy.
From the Enlightenment to the digitalization of the world, engineering sciences have shaped our transformations. Yet tomorrow’s humanist engineer will need to keep a critical distance from blind techno-solutionism. Progress will be neither a technocratic utopia nor a disembodied narrative: it will be collective, invigorating, and demanding. It is up to us to continue training, supporting, and celebrating leaders capable of combining the rigor of engineering sciences with the empathy of the human sciences.
